Greger Strøm Special No. 2 of Trondheim, Norway. Greger's second Nordic Special Racer was built in 1938, while Greger was working at Gaden & Larsen in Trondheim. He raced it once at Leangbanen in 1938. The race at Leangen started good for Greger, but with around 100 metres left to the finish line, the throttle linkage broke, and he lost the race. It was a frustrating situation for Greger who was in it for the win. As with his first car, the Greger Strøm Special No. 2 was also parted after the race. The engine was sold, but Greger never got his money. Borrowed parts were returned, and the rest of the car was left rotting away. Nobody knows what became of the remaining parts of this race car.

A newspaper clipping from Halden Arbeiderblad Saturday, March 26, 1960, announcing the formation of a new car club in Oslo called Speed Cars Club. The newly formed club was dedicated to "Speedcars" and Hot Rods.

An customized 1955 or 1956 Ford photographed in Oslo around 1967 - 1968. Gunnar Berg Kristoffersen spotted the car in Sørkedalsveien, Majorstua at a fenced property where the vehicle licensing department stored cars they had towed in or confiscated. As a hot rod and custom interested teenager Gunnar was very excited about the customized American car, so he jumped the fence and took a photo of it. In 2015 Gunnar told Kustomrama that he believed the car was pink, purple or light green metallic. If you recognize this car, please get in touch with us at mail@kustomrama.com. Photo courtesy of Gunnar Berg Kristoffersen.

Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford Cabriolet of Oslo, Norway. The build was started around 1964 - 1965, and completed in 1969. Once completed the vehicle licensing department refused to approve the build. After several attempts, Per Arne gave up fighting the law, and he sold the car to Ludvig Bjørnstad. Ludvig turned the hot rod into a drag racer, and it became one of the first Norwegian cars to ever compete in an organized drag race.

Auto Racing and Nordic Special Racers

February 25, 1912 the first automobile ice-race was organized in Norway. It found place at Bundefjorden outside of Oslo. The race received massive coverage in the news, and extra trains were set up to carry curious people to the event. As the crowds grew, the race turned into a chaos, and the racers had a hard time seing the track. The public were all over the place, and several accidents happened. The organizers eventually decided to cancel the race before it was over due to all the chaos, and public and racers had to leave the ice. The next day, the newspapers wrote about the race as a total failure, and it would take 10 years until the next official ice race was organized in Norway.[1]

Rationing of Cars

After WWII you needed a special permit to buy cars in Norway, as the Norwegian government wanted to reduce consumption of imported goods. As a result of this, there were only 18 cars per thousand citizen in Norway in 1948. If you already owned a car, you had restrictions when it came to mileage. There were also periods when it was forbidden to use a car. Automobiles were luxury in Norway during this time. When you crossed the border to Sweden, there were several used car dealers, ranging from small to large. Båstnäs was one of the largest. They all had Norwegians as customers. Parts were sold so people could repair and upgrade their pre-war cars. According to the book I grenseland. Bildrømmer på 1950-tallet, thousands of used cars were also bought on the Swedish side of the border. These were dis-assembled before they were brought across the border and assembled again in Norway.[2]

Some homemade cars were also built and registered in Norway in the 1950s. One of these were Almar Nordhaug's Dream Car. Almar built his dream car while working at a barrel company in Tórshavn on the Faroe Island. He moved back to Norway in 1957, and brought the car with him.

The First Generation of Norwegian Hot Rodders

It took about 10 years from the first Hot Rod Magazine first hit the newsstands, to the hot rod movement of Southern California reached the coast of Norway. In the 1950s and 1960s american small size hot rod and custom magazines were sold at various newsstands in the biggest cities of Norway. These were the main source of inspiration for Norwegian teenagers wanting to build and drive hot rods. There were plenty of cars to base a build on, but getting the right parts, tools and equipment were almost impossible. In March of 1957 the Norwegian magazine Motor Avisen wrote a story about hot rods, the latest trend from USA. At the time Norwegian gearheads living Oslo used to hang out at Kontraskjæret, playing music, showing off for the girls, cruising cars and dreaming about owning a modified car such as a hot rod or a custom. In 1958, a year after Motor Avisen had written about the hot rod trend in the United States, Speed-Nytt 3/1958 followed up with a featured story on Per Røed's 1932 Ford Cabriolet of Oslo, Norway. Per's cabriolet was powered by a 1939 FordV-8 engine that had been hopped up by shaving the heads. Speed-Nytt named Per's Ford "The First Hot Rod of Norway". Tore Tømmerås read the story on Per's Ford the same day as the magazine hit the stands. He immediately called the editors of Speed-Nytt to tell them about a club he and two friends had just started. Speed-Nytt paid the teenagers of Frogner in Oslo a visit, and in the next issue of Speed-Nytt gear headed teenagers of Norway could read all about The Wildcat Motorclub, "Norway's First Hot Rod Club". Oslo was the hotbed for the continuously growing hot rod and custom movement of Norway, and it didn't take long time before another hot rod club was established in Oslo. Oslo Hot Rod Klubb, located further downtown was founded later on in 1958.[4] According to an article by Amcar Magazine on Drag-Racing in Norway, Per Ivar Kolgrov and "Endre" were members of Oslo Hot Rod Klubb.

September 2, 1958 board members from Oslo Hot Rod Klubb and The Wildcat Motorclub joined forces and held a meeting discussing a possible cooperation and forming of different Drag-Racing classes. Together they decided that the different classes should be formed based on:

a. The weight of the cars, minus the weight of the ballast, gas and driver.
b. The height from the ground to the highest point of the car, minus antennas, flag-poles and other accessories.
c. The number of cylinders: 4,6 or 8. Straight or V-shaped engines should compete in the same classes. An additional class was also formed for engines with more than 8 cylinders.

The dragstrip was also specified during the meeting, and the members of both clubs agreed about having a relatively short dragstrip compared to the shutdown area. By having a long shutdown area, the racers could have as fast as speed as possible when they crossed the finish-line. Good acceleration was therefore important if you wanted to win. The long shutdown area was necessary due to the high speed. A short shutdown area could result in damaged parts on the old cars due to hard braking. Two cars could race head on. The length of the dragstrip was set to be about 405 meters. Unfortunately the Drag-Racing dreams never came through for the young boys. Eager for speed, ice and dirt-track racing became their only alternative.[5]

Both The Wildcat Motorclub and Oslo Hot Rod Klubb were short-lived club attempts. As the members grew an interest in girls, it became hard to maintain the weekly club nights, and both clubs faded slowly out. The boys kept their cars and used them regularly, but by the early 1960s both clubs were history.[5]

Rationing of Cars Comes To and End

In 1960 the rationing of cars in Norway was removed, and normal citizens were allowed to buy cars again.[2]

The Second Generation of Norwegian Hot Rodders

When it comes to building hot rods and customs, Sweden was way ahead of Norway. Just as in Norway, the Swedish traditional hot rod and custom scene can be traced back to the late 1950s. Many more cars were built in Sweden though, and it is apparent that the cars built in Norway in the 1960s were very influenced by the Swedish style. One of the first known custom cars of Norway was Per Ivar Kolgrov's 1948 Mercury. According to Roar Arnegård, it was quite a sensation when Per Ivar got his heavily modified Mercury through the licensing department in the mid 1960s.[6]Oslo was still the hotbed when it came to Norwegian hot rods and kustoms in the 1960s, but things were going on in other cities as well, such as Trondheim, were Einar Valsjø was busy customizing his 1952 Mercury. Einar's Mercury was completed around 1963.

Oslo Hot Rod Klubb and The Wildcat Motorclub were both short-lived club attempts, but they left impressions on other teenagers in Oslo such as Per Arne Knudsen and Roar Arnegård. In 1964 Per Arne and Roar decided to form a new club called Viking Custom.[5] In order to find out if there were other hot rod interested teenagers in Norway interested in forming a club, Per Arne and Roar ran a classified in the Swedish magazine Start & Speed. 14 years old Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen answered the ad and attended the first club meeting. He was told to take the tram to the church of Gamlebyen in Oslo, as the meeting was held at Per Arne's home at Alnafet street, close to the church. Present at the first meeting was Per Arne, Roar and other teens that dreamed about owning a hot rod.[7] Being a serious club, Viking Custom had their own logo and newsletter. When it came to cars, Per Arne owned several cars, but his under progress hot rod project was a 1934 Ford cabriolet that he had traded for a stock 1923 Ford Model-T. Roar owned a 1933 Ford roadster with 4 or 5 friends. The roadster had been imported from the United States, and both set of to turn these stockers into real hot rods as they had seen in Hot Rod Magazine. Roar's car was rumored to be an old Police car, and the police stars were still visible on the doors.

In 1967Per Arne Knudsen and Roar Arnegård went seperate ways, and Viking Custom went into the history books. Per Arne went on to found a more organized club called Nor-Way Custom.[8] The newly founded club wanted to grow nationally, and they advertised for members all over Norway by running informal ads telling people about the existence of the club. As Viking Custom, Nor-Way Custom also had their own logo and newsletter. The newsletter was called "Rod & Custom News". After a while, Nor-Way Custom counted over 100 members. Per Arne Knudsen was the President of the newly established club, while Lasse Anundsen acted as Vice-President. The main focus of Nor-Way Custom was to locate decent project cars, restyle them, and to work with the authorities to have such cars legalized for use on the streets.[9] As the repuatation of Nor-Way Custom grew, a Norwegian household magazine came to make a story on the club. The publicity didn't do the club good, and people started to steal tools from the garage. At the same time the vehicle licensing department began signalizing that the cars in the club never would pass their inspections.[7] In 1969 the vehicle licensing department refused to approve the club's first hot rod, Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford cabriolet. Kalle Brøderud, another Nor-Way Custom member, remembers the infamous Mr. Neslein of the vehicle licensing department climbing down into Per Arne's 34, taking the car for a spin down Mosseveien in Oslo. As Neslein meant it would be a big provocation against the authorities to show up at the vehicle licensing department with such a radical altered car, he suggested he should come down to Knudsen's garage to take a look at the car instead. When Neslein returned with the '34, he told Per Arne that he would never get Norwegian license plates on the '34.[9] The club held several meetings discussing the case, and some of the members wanted to hire an attorney and take the vehicle licensing department to court.[7] That never happened, and Per Arne ended up trading the '34 to Ludvig Bjørnstad for a rather stock 1956 Chevrolet two-door hardtop in 1970. At the time, organized drag racing gained traction in Sweden, and as the Swedish magazine Start & Speed started to pop up in newsstands all over Norway, Norwegian teenagers began to travel across the border to get a glimpse of the growing sport. As members of Nor-Way Custom realized that they would have a hard time getting their hot rods approved by the infamous Neslein, many of them they decided to turn their under-progress hot rods into dragsters instead. This was the beginning of the end for Nor-Way Custom. Glorified dreams about owning a street driven hot rod, and the previous energy for common club operations were slowly fading away. The drag racing oriented part of the club evetually left Nor-Way Custom, and established a new club called American Cars of Southern Norway. From day one, ACSN's mission was to bring drag racing to Norway. A goal they worked hard to achieve[9]

There were still some enthusiasts left customizing cars in Norway in the 1970s. Their choice of vehicles were often muscle cars, and the restyling consisted mainly of custom paint jobs and interiors. The engines were hopped up, aluminum wheels were installed, and the cars were often raised in the rear. In 1974American Car Club of Trondheim held an American-only car show in Nidarøhallen, Trondheim named Motormesseshow. The 1974 Motormesseshow was the first US-car show of Norway. Early custom pioneer Einar Valsjø attended the show with his customized 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass Convertible. The build was completed the night before the show, and it was the first car of Norway featuring a show car paint job.[10]